Privacy Digest

Bush pushes FISA and immunity agenda - Via PogoWasRIght - Privacy News Headlines:

In his weekly radio address yesterday, Bush urged Congress to address FISA and retroactive immunity for telecoms that participated in warrantless surveillance programs. The White House had previously indicated its intention to veto any bill that does not contain an immunity provision. The House passed the RESTORE Act, but the Senate has yet to take up its own version of the bill, which may or may not contain immunity provisions.

From the transcript of yesterday's radio address:

[...]

Another priority Congress must address is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. FISA provides a critical legal framework that allows our intelligence community to monitor terrorist communications while protecting the freedoms of the American people. Unfortunately, the law is dangerously out of date. In August, Congress passed legislation to help modernize FISA. That bill closed critical intelligence gaps, allowing us to collect important foreign intelligence. The problem is, this new law expires on February 1st -- while the threat from our terrorist enemies does not.

Congress must take action now to keep the intelligence gaps closed -- and make certain our national security professionals do not lose a critical tool for keeping America safe. As part of these efforts, Congress also needs to provide meaningful liability protection to those companies now facing multi-billion dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our Nation following the 9/11 attacks.

(Read Original Article - Via PogoWasRIght - Privacy News Headlines.)